Describing the Indescribable Quotes

“The Buddha taught non-attachment not as a means of escaping reality, but as a means of dealing with the fundamental nature of reality. There simply is nothing to which we can attach ourselves, no matter how hard we try. The idea of behaving without attachment springs from understanding that everything is empty. The self is empty, the desires of the self are empty, and the objects of those desires also are empty. In time, things will change and the conditions that produced our current desires will be gone. Why then, cling to them now? The Buddha taught that our tendency to cling to the illusion of permanence is a fundamental cause of suffering.”
― Hsing Yun, Describing the Indescribable: A Commentary on the Diamond Sutra

“phenomenal”
― Hsing Yun, Describing the Indescribable: A Commentary on the Diamond Sutra

“In some Buddhist sutras, bodhisattvas are said to make buddha realms “magnificent” by their practice of the six paramitas. In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha denies the possibility of any such magnificence. The Buddha taught on many different levels. If in one sutra he says that the six paramitas are “magnificent” while in another he says that they are not, he is not contradicting himself. He is simply rising to a higher level of truth to suit his audience. We can be certain that the Diamond Sutra teaches a very high level of truth because this discourse is directed at Subhuti, the Buddha’s foremost disciple in wisdom.”
― Hsing Yun, Describing the Indescribable: A Commentary on the Diamond Sutra